Blood, Sweat, Tears and Prayers: Firefighting and EMS from Some of the Toughest Streets in America

Gary Ludwig has been a firefighter/paramedic for 37 years and has worked in two of the most violent cities in the United States (St. Louis and Memphis) for 34 years of those years. He gathers his experiences in this field and presents an honest overview of his experiences with the emotions, feelings, sights, and gut-wrenching efforts men and women in this field experience to save a life or property. This is the insider look at a profession few of us fully appreciate: This book gains the profession the respect that is due.

Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America's Most Select Airborne Firefighters

In this extraordinarily rare memoir by an active-duty jumper, Jason Ramos takes listeners into his exhilarating and dangerous world, explores smokejumping's remarkable history, and explains why their services are more essential than ever before.

Jefferer R. Beren says:"About damn time a book on wildland firefighting was written!!!"

Firehouse

Engine 40, Ladder 35 was one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse, located on the West Side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center; 12 of the men would never return. The story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day, it is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

Fire Chief: The Story of a Volunteer Firefighter

A retired fire chief pens reflections on his life as a volunteer firefighter. Fire Chief by Ed Daniels shares experiences and sacrifices until now known only to the volunteers themselves. In his first novel, Fire Chief: The Story of a Volunteer Firefighter, author Ed Daniels recalls his life as a volunteer firefighter in the mountains of Colorado. Based on actual events, the book takes listeners into the heat that countless volunteer firefighters face every day throughout the world.

The Art of Effective Communication for the Fire Officer

In a world full of communication breakdowns - where nation fights against nation, neighbor fights against neighbor and so many are misunderstood - there is much to be learned from the communication challenges inherent in a fire station where egos run rampant. In no other context is it as urgent that communication work well than in firefighting. And there’s no better observer and expert on those lessons than Allan London, a firefighter with more than three decades of experience making communication decisions that save lives.

Lights and Sirens: The Education of a Paramedic

Nine months of tying tourniquets and pushing new medications, of IVs, chest compressions, and defibrillator shocks - that was Kevin Grange's initiation into emergency medicine when, at age 36, he enrolled in the "Harvard of paramedic schools": UCLA's Daniel Freeman paramedic program, long considered one of the best and most intense paramedic training programs in the world.

Amazon Customer says:"if your looking into EMS as a career DO READ!!!i"

On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It

On June 28, 2013, a single bolt of lightning sparked an inferno that devoured more than 8,000 acres in Northern Arizona. Twenty elite firefighters - the Granite Mountain Hotshots - walked together into the blaze, tools in their hands and fire shelters on their hips. Only one of them walked out.

The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57

The Esperanza Fire started October 26, 2006, in the San Jacinto Mountains above the Banning Pass near Cabazon, California. It destroyed 41,000 acres and dozens of homes and cost the taxpayers $16 million dollars. But by far the highest costs of the conflagration were the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first engine crew ever killed fighting a wildland blaze. Fire and superheated gases had erupted in a freak "area ignition," sending flames racing across three-quarters of a mile in mere seconds, engulfing the crew and the house they were defending.

The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots

When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June of 2013, setting off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history, the 20 men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots sprang into action. An elite crew trained to combat the most challenging wildfires, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family crisscrossing the American West and wherever else the fires took them. The Hotshots were loyal to one another and dedicated to the tough job they had.

San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires

At 5:12 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco was struck by one of the worst earthquakes in history, instantly killing hundreds. This watershed event in American history has never before been told with the richness of historical detail and insight that our foremost historian of fire, Dennis Smith, brings to it in San Francisco Is Burning. Smith cinematically recounts this terrible tragedy through the stories of the people who lived through those terrible days...

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders simply weren't tall enough. People on the street watched in horror as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. It was the worst disaster in New York City history.

The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy

In 1944, the big top of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford caught fire during the middle of an afternoon performance. Nine thousand people were inside. In seconds, the big top was burning out of control. The toll of the fire, and its circumstances, haunt Hartford to the present day. But it is the intense, detailed narrative - before, after, and especially during the panic under the burning tent - that will remain with listeners long after they finish this book.

A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back

In the aftermath of 9/11, Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life - his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age 26, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm - one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.

My Lost Brothers: The Untold Story by the Yarnell Hill Fire's Lone Survivor

Brendan McDonough was on the verge of becoming a hopeless, inveterate heroin addict when, for the sake of his young daughter, he decided to turn his life around. He enlisted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of elite firefighters based in Prescott, Arizona. Their leader, Eric Marsh, was in a desperate crunch after four hotshots left the unit, and, perhaps seeing a glimmer of promise in the skinny would-be recruit, he took a chance on the unlikely McDonough, and the chance paid off.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July, 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history.

Michael J Canning says:"Enthralling and authentic story of valor in combat"

13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi

13 Hours presents, for the first time ever, the true account of the events of September 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station called the Annex in Benghazi, Libya. A team of six American security operators fought to repel the attackers and protect the Americans stationed there. Those men went beyond the call of duty, performing extraordinary acts of courage and heroism, to avert tragedy on a much larger scale.

Through Smoke: Firefighter Heroes Trilogy Book One

Firefighter Michael McGinnis is no stranger to intense situations. Veteran of New York's Ladder 21 Company as a search and rescue man, he has seen his share of burning infernos, high-rise saves, and intense emergency situations. Despite McGinnis' years on the job, nothing can prepare him for getting tangled in his brother's mistakes as a drug addict and gambler, especially when a bloodthirsty bookie gets involved.

The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

Publisher's Summary

On December 3, 1999, the call crackled in to the men of the Worchester, Massachusetts Fire Department: a three-alarm warehouse blaze in a six-story windowless colossus of brick and mortar.

Firefighters love the excitement of a "triple." But this was a different beast. Rollovers, flashovers, backdrafts, this one had it all. Once inside, they found themselves trapped in a snarling furnace of blazing orange heat as hot as a crematorium, with smoke so black and predatory they had to feel for their partners next to them. Swallowed deep in the building, with no way out, they struggled to survive an ill-fated ordeal that would push them to the very limits of loyalty and courage.

What happened next - and how their lives and community were changed forever - offers an unprecedented look at these heroic men whose job it is to rush into burning buildings when everyone else just wants out.

What the Critics Say

Audie Award Winner, Nonfiction (Unabridged) 2003

"[Among] books appearing this year about fires and firefighting...the best of the lot is Sean Flynn's 3000 Degrees." (Newsweek) "Gripping prose...With confident, deft description, Flynn brings to life this 3000-degree catastrophe with a crackling intensity." (Publishers Weekly) "A miracle of reporting...This story has the emotional power of the best narrative art." (American Society of Magazine Editors

Sean Flynn's book 3000 Degree's, about the Worchester, Mass Firemen who fought a against an enemy that seemed to only feed grow on men's fears and thier emotions was amazing. This Esquire article turned book, brings the ture story of the men who went in this building but did not make it home.

This book, unlike other stories, helps to bring the reader deep into the lives of the men who and the circumstances that took their life. Flynn's ability to help the reader or listener enter in the belly of this beast through the last minutes of their lives yet not over dramatize it is is refreshing.

Richard Rohan's narration of this book helps to add the perfect amount of emotion to the books as needed.

I was first introduced to this story in journalism school, when one of my favorite professors shared the magazine article that was the basis for this book as an example of tremendous reporting. I found the story so captivating, I just had to listen to this full-length version. This is top-notch narrative nonfiction, painting not just a picture of the horrific warehouse fire, but of the firemen who lost their lives and the families left behind in the aftermath of the tragedy. While the narration wasn't my favorite, it didn't detract from this compelling - and detailed - account.

As a fire fighter, I expected this account to be a glorified account of another fire that took fire fighter lives. What I found was a captivating account that detailed the fire fighter lives at home and in the fire station, their attitudes, the excitement of the fire scene, the fire fight and the heartbreak of losing comrades and family. Although a fire fighter will understand exactly the descriptions of the fire and the fire scene, the author has described in detail so that the layman will also be able to paint the picture.

This was a fantastic book. The author did his homework on this one. I am a firefighter and he has it prefect. Station life. The whole works.I'm a seasoned vet and I had tears in my eyes. Great reading....(listening)

This is a high-energy tale about six fighters who die in a warehouse fire in Worcester, Mass. While it's hard to fault a writer for putting in too many details, this may be an exception. I think the details overpower this story -- almost as if the writer struggled to find enough material to stretch his story into 60,000 words. There's so much padding (and so many characters!), it's hard to focus on the six heroes and keep them straight. Occasionally, the dialogue seems silly and stilted.

It's a light, interesting read, but oddly doesn't create the emotional build up you would expect. I shed more tears hearing the television accounts.

Also, the wrong reader was chosen for this book. He fakes a Boston accent that ends up sounding more like a speech impediment. I've never heard anyone around here speak like that.

This is well written and takes into account real people for what they do and did. The heroism which takes place in this true to life story is inspiring to all who do the job day in day out. The realism which is described in the telling of the story is a spine chilling accounts of the men and their dedication to each other. This was great to listen too and a great story as well.

This is a wrenching, detailed account of the fire in which six Worcester firefighters lost their lives. The deceased firefighters, their families and their colleagues are shown as full, breathing human beings caught in a tragedy beyond their control. I do agree that the fake Boston accent is a little distracting, but the book is too good to be badly affected by that. I highly recommend this book.